"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Consumers today have more power than ever before. The large and diverse selection of media available on newsstands means that customers know what they should be getting, and if they aren't satisfied with the service there's a host of Web sites and forums on which they can let everyone know.

Common opinion holds that diplomacy involves careful negotiation and an ability to bite your tongue. But what happens when the political situation in a country is so corrupt that you feel it is your moral duty to speak out?

Imagine a world without zero: The magic number that has given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics, which forms the basis of modern computing in binary code and which, less profoundly, but perhaps more importantly, lets us know when we've drained our bank account with one too many shopping trips.

"The Spirit of..." team has been running an online poll asking viewers to choose who they think has been the most influential leader to have featured on the show over the course of the past twelve months.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Consumers today have more power than ever before. The large and diverse selection of media available on newsstands means that customers know what they should be getting, and if they aren't satisfied with the service there's a host of Web sites and forums on which they can let everyone know.

Common opinion holds that diplomacy involves careful negotiation and an ability to bite your tongue. But what happens when the political situation in a country is so corrupt that you feel it is your moral duty to speak out?

Imagine a world without zero: The magic number that has given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics, which forms the basis of modern computing in binary code and which, less profoundly, but perhaps more importantly, lets us know when we've drained our bank account with one too many shopping trips.

"The Spirit of..." team has been running an online poll asking viewers to choose who they think has been the most influential leader to have featured on the show over the course of the past twelve months.

You can almost picture it now: Paris Hilton swallowed up by a tight-fitting futuristic designer space suit -- one hand waving at the on-flight camera, the other clasping a Dior "space traveler" handbag.

"The moon's been there for about four billion years and it's moving further and further away from the earth. And it's been a destination or quizzical thing for humans for thousands of years, centuries; it's been something that you dream about." -- Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on "The Spirit of Space."

It could be argued when Tony Blair left the office of Prime Minister in June, his parting from the public stage was mourned by few but chief among those mourners were Britain's satirists. The characteristics of the Blair government with its emphasis on spin and sound bites created a wealth of material for top British satirist Craig Brown.

A question. What connects Facebook enthusiasts in China busy translating the social networking site into Mandarin and a community of orthopaedic surgeons swapping ideas on how to treat spinal injuries?

When Brian Burton, a little known DJ operating under the name of Danger Mouse, released "The Grey Album" in 2003, he brought to mainstream attention a new form of musical genre made possible by the advance of modern technology and the Internet. He also inadvertently sparked a debate about record labels' monopoly of music ownership.

Since the early days of pop music, the music industry has been searching for the secret formula to writing a successful song -- for that special alchemy that separates a Grammy-winner from a dud. For a period in the 1970s and 80s, the self-styled King of Pop Michael Jackson seemed to have stumbled upon it, but somewhere along the line he, too, seems to have misplaced it.

The world's coral reefs are under threat. Overfishing, unsustainable tourism, coastal development, pollution, the global aquarium trade and climate change are having a devastating effect on these fragile ecosystems, according to the International Coral Reef Initiative.

Remember the days when a washing machine lasted for decades? If it broke down it could be fixed. But now it seems it is cheaper to discard our broken products and buy new ones. The side effects of our throwaway society are ever-larger waste mountains festering with toxic chemicals and the depletion of natural resources such as rare metals.

It could be argued when Tony Blair left the office of Prime Minister in June, his parting from the public stage was mourned by few but chief among those mourners were Britain's satirists. The characteristics of the Blair government with its emphasis on spin and sound bites created a wealth of material for top British satirist Craig Brown.

It's boom-boom time for comedians and satirists. They pack out tents at music festivals, clubs and pubs and fill up the prime time slots on TV and radio. They have colonized multimedia with podcasts, vodcasts and blogs. So if you need cheering up or feel like a laugh, there have never been more places to get it.

Who'd be a chugger? It's a thankless task -- standing on the High Street often in the rain, wearing a fluorescent vest, hold in a clipboard and trying to get someone, anyone, to stop and talk to you -- and maybe even donate some money.

There is such a thing as being out of time: of looking at a map in your bedroom and realizing the most intriguing bits of the world have already been explored, that many indigenous groups had already been ruined by modern life, that vast tracts of rainforests or deserts or seas had also been spoiled by progress, that climbing Everest has become just another sport.